


Onward and Upward

by Lexie



Category: The Red Star
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-07
Updated: 2008-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-03 12:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Kar Dathra's Gate, a wife and a brother must go on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Onward and Upward

**Author's Note:**

> Some working knowledge of _The Red Star_ is helpful for reading, but even just knowing the premise goes a long way. Set after the events described (in flashback) in issues 1-4. Thanks to [](http://rushin-doll.livejournal.com/profile)[**rushin_doll**](http://rushin-doll.livejournal.com/) for a preliminary beta, long ago; by now, any mistakes are mine and not his.
> 
> I do not own _The Red Star_, the world of it, or the characters; all belongs to Archangel Studios and the correct people. I just like playing in their sandbox. I make no profit off of this, and any that I did would go to the creators so that they could _put out the next issue_.

"Maya," said Urik. He swayed in the doorway, water pouring off of him and darkening the hallway carpet. "C'n I come in?"

Maya stepped aside, managing to convey more disappointment and pain -- pain for him, Urik knew, pity for him, and he wanted none of it -- in those few seconds of silence than most women could with five minutes of talking.

"Thank you," Urik drawled, stepping into the tiny apartment.

Maya shut the door. "You're drunk."

"Excellent observational skills, little sister." Urik barked a laugh. "Top notch."

Maya's mouth hardened. "You're going to catch your death, Urik Antares, parading around like that in wet clothes, and I don't want anything to do with it." She held out a hand, and after a moment's pause, Urik pulled the paper bag-wrapped bottle out of his coat and gave it to her.

She took a sniff of the bottle and grimaced, crossing behind him to set it on an end table. "It smells foul." She slipped her fingers under the lapels of his coat and began insistently tugging his drenched greatcoat off.

Were he with any other woman, Urik would laugh, make a smart remark about the graceful hands stripping him of his coat. But not with Maya. Never with Maya. "It _is_ foul," he said. "That was the general idea. What are you doing?"

The coat made a dull, wet slap as it hit the back of a nearby chair, and Maya turned back to him. She was tired, he noticed for the first time, with pinched exhaustion smudged under her eyes. Despite the hour, she wore trousers, a fitted jacket, and boots. Her hair had been pulled into a long tail, gathered low at the nape of her neck. Urik had never seen it unbraided.

"I _said_, I'll be damned if I'm going to stand around and let you drown yourself." She pointed at his feet. "Take your boots off."

"I'm not drowning," he said, but as he met her eyes, he knew that at least one of them was.

Urik sat down on the chair and pulled off his boots. "Where's your shadow?" he asked, mockingly.

Maya's jaw tightened. "I sent Kyuzo home," she said, inviting no comment. When Urik raised his head, the light made it clear that not all of the dark marks across his face were shadows. Maya's eyes lingered on the blackest of the bruises, but she said nothing; she picked up his coat and took the four steps necessary to bring her into the tiny kitchen and out of sight.

"You know where the bathroom is," she said, as Urik heard the faucet run. "I'll handle the wet clothes. Just leave them outside the door."

Urik stood barefoot in the hall, heavy and silent, and then he reached for the bottle of cheap gin -- just in time to see it float around the corner into the kitchen. "Damn witches," he muttered, with no real heat, and he walked through the dark apartment.

(He hadn't been here since before the Al'Istaan campaign. It looked the same as it always did, if a little neater.)

He hadn't realized how cold he was until he stood under the lukewarm water in the shower and it felt as though it was scalding the skin off his bones. He set his jaw and stubbornly stood under the spray, and as the feeling returned to his toes, his head began to clear.

What the hell was he doing here?

He'd gotten foolishly, inexcusably drunk, and the first thing he'd done was run to Maya, who had plenty of problems of her own without listening to his, without having to sober him up. He felt the thick, cloying strands of shame begin to curl.

What the hell was he doing here?

He'd wandered after leaving his apartment, bottle of gin in tow. Let his feet take him wherever the hell they wanted to go, since Urik didn't give a damn. And they'd brought him straight to Marcus and Maya; to this apartment, where he'd spent time with his little brother and sister-in-law and their weird hodgepodge of a family.

Urik turned off the water and stepped out of the shower with minimal stumbling, and he rubbed a towel over his hair and wrapped it around his waist. When he opened the bathroom door, he found the bubbling sound of boiling water from the kitchen, and a bundle of neatly folded cloth on the floor.

* * *

  
"Maya!" called Urik's tight voice. "Maya." Urik stepped into the kitchen doorway, holding the towel closed at his hip with white-knuckled fingers -- and in his other hand, the clothes she'd left out for him. "Maya, I can't wear these."

Maya barely glanced over at him, leaning over the coffeepot. "Yes, you can."

"No, I _can't_; I--"

"Urik," Maya snapped, sharp and unexpected, looking up swiftly. "Your clothes are in the dryer, and unless you really want to walk around here naked or wearing a pair of my trousers, what you have is your only choice."

The strained cast to her features -- desperately holding herself together, he saw, with all the considerable strength that she possessed -- convinced him far more than her logic. Urik nodded once, tightly, and turned back without another word.

* * *

  
(The casual trousers and short-sleeved black shirt were a little big, but that was to be expected. Marcus had been the bigger of the Antares brothers for a long time.)

* * *

  
Urik accepted the mug of coffee from her. "Thanks," he said, setting it on a side table.

"You're welcome." Maya folded herself into a seat on the sofa, slipping her legs under herself with the casual, unconscious sort of grace that Urik always thought had snared his younger brother in the first place.

Neither of them said a word.

Urik cleared his throat. "Have you talked to Goncharova?"

Maya's eyes dropped to her mug, her finger tracing the rim. "Once or twice."

"Once or _twice_?" he asked. "She's been chomping at the bit to see you."

"Well, maybe I'm not 'chomping at the bit' to see her," Maya shot back, her gaze rising swiftly.

"Maya, she saved your _life_."

"She took me from him," she said. Her voice was low and contained, and all the more painful for it. "I could have _found_ him, Uri."

"No, goddammit, you couldn't have!" Urik retorted, furiously. "You would have just gotten your damned fool self killed in the process!"

Maya rose in a whirl of hair and movement. "I don't know what you want from me, Urik!" she snapped. "I haven't heard from you since the memorial service, you've spoken to Alex more than you have to me, and you suddenly show up at our--"

They both caught her slip, even if they pretended they didn't, and even if Maya furiously pressed on despite the way that she had frozen, her face losing color.

"--the door in the middle of the night, reeking of gin and looking like you've been in a _fight_\-- I don't know what you're looking for!"

"I got promoted."

"--What?"

"I," Urik pronounced perfectly, "got promoted."

Maya's eyes were very blue and suddenly still, and fixed on him.

"Brusilov was 'impressed by the bravery and attention to duty of First-Mate Urik Antares at the Battle of Kar Dathra's Gate.' " The twisted, achingly mocking self-importance of Urik's tone did Commander Brusilov no favors.

"They made me a skymarshall, Maya. They made me a goddamn skymarshall and they gave you a medal.

"Some goddamn world we live in."

Before Maya turned away, he read the truth of his words on her face. Her eyes hidden in shadow, her hand on the back of her neck, she said only, "I know," her voice low, and Urik thought again that he should not have come.


End file.
